OhmyNews International, South Korea
May 25 2008
Eurovision 2008: Where Pop Makes a Spectacle of Itself
Song contest concludes with the usual mix of excess, politics and
gleeful bad taste
Now that the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest from Belgrade, Serbia is
history, it is time to once again savor those sugary sweet moments of
excess one final time before chasing all those throwaway tunes out of
our brains. It should have been predictable, Dima Bilan of Russia
won. After all, he was the absolute star of the show, still glowing
from his near win two years ago. Yet, the show always has its
surprises, and its inexplicable successes and failures and that keeps
it interesting.
Here is a partial review of what happened at the finals on May 24.
After a rendition of the winning song from 2007, a gender bending pop
tune sung by Serbia’s Marija Serifovic, which is the reason why they
were meeting in Belgrade this year, the mind numbing blur of 2008 Euro
pop tunes began.
A disappointing love duet from Romania led off, boding ill for this
year’s show, but it was quickly followed by something much better. The
U.K. tried to redeem itself from last year’s fiasco with a fairly
presentable 1970s style funky soul number called "Even If" sung by a
good performer named Andy Abraham. He turned it out believable, even
down to his tight funky suit. Now will that be enough to obliterate
2007’s "Scooch," a song that will live on as a legend of bad taste?
Albania came next with a 16 year-old artist named Olta Boka. She sang
well, but since Albanian doesn’t sound at all like anything else, it
was hard to tell what she was getting all worked up about.
Germany was next, and it seemed that after last year’s attempt to rise
from the back of the pack with an ambitious entry, they have given up,
and returned to the bottom. No Angels sang "Disappear." Imagine the
Pussy Cat Dolls if they couldn’t carry a tune or bust even the lamest
move. An exercise in degradation.
Sirusho from Armenia sang "Qele, Qele." Her impressively strong and
perfectly pitched voice really carried this song, and insured Armenia
a place in the top five.
Other high quality performances came from Turkey, an excellent hard
rock number by Mor ve Otesi, which did fairly well in the voting; a
well-done disco performance from Ani Lorak of the Ukraine, which
brought that country within shouting distance of winning; and then a
believable R&B song from Norway that didn’t help that country get very
far at all, possibly because of the group’s oddly boring look.
Mediocre songs were presented by Georgia and Serbia, and they were
immediately forgotten. Less explicable, however, was the way that
Portugal’s and Israel’s performances were forgotten. Especially the
song by Boaz of Israel, which was one of the most original and
intriguing sounds of the evening. But the interplay of voting cartels
among neighboring nations and the vote of guest workers in various
countries always make for odd bedfellows, and surprising snubs. It can
all be explained somehow, if you have the time and inclination.
There were several awful novelty performances: Bosnia Herzegovina with
a bit of Absurdist theater, some pirates from Latvia and an atrocious
over-the-top reggaeton from Spain. There were some heavy metal
numbers, from Azerbaijan and from Finland and some schlocky disco from
Sweden, Iceland and Denmark. There were forgettable ballads from
Poland and France.
The oddest success of the evening had to be Kalomira of Greece. The
song was a silly Latin hip-hop rehash from 20 years ago. The singer
was off pitch more than she was on, and the performance was cloying
and amateurish. Yet, she had a certain cute stage presence and an
endearing smile, and the political logistics of the contest in the
capital of Serbia (a Greek ally in so many ways) made a fertile
environment for Greek success. Kalomira, with this hideous song,
"Secret Combination" came in second to Russia in the voting.
But there is only one winner. And this year it was Russia. Dima Bilan
sang "Believe." Dima is the most successful artist now participating
in Eurovision, and his star quality and fan following was able to
carry this somewhat imperfect song to success. He went all out with
it, singing on his knees with his shirt half off. The audience went
wild.
While the voting was going on, Serbian TV had to fill up a good 20
minutes with chit chat, touristic shots of Belgrade and music. And so,
just to remind us that there is real authentic music still lurking
somewhere in the European soul, they trotted out Goran Bregovic and
his Wedding and Funeral Band. They played some great Balkan band
music, to cleanse the palate, as it were.
The votes were counted and all the predictable things
happened. Andorra voted for Spain, the Scandinavians voted for each
other, Cyprus voted for Greece, and Greece and Armenia ignored
Turkey. Hardly anyone voted for Germany or the U.K. Greece came
dangerously close to winning, and Dima finally came out on top, as he
and his group chanted "Ro-ssy-yah!" in the party room.
Thus the Eurovision song contest came to a satisfactory end. As the
winner gets to host the next show, it will Moscow in 2009. It could
have been worse, after all, Armenia came very close to the top, and
that would mean schlepping this entire dog and pony show to
Yerevan. But all catastrophes were averted and now all can sleep
well. And presumably not admit to anyone how they spent this Saturday
night in May.
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